Quote:
Originally Posted by T@T
Hogwash to the extreme. 
The place is literally 5 minutes by C-train from downtown. 15 minutes up the deerfoot from as far as 22x and 20 minutes from as far away as Airdrie. What exactly is central to you...the calgary tower sidewalk?
As they say..build it and they will come,that includes restaurants, hotels and shops.
BTW the best war-won-ton is already across the street and if you win the 50-50 draw so are the Ferrari and Jag dealers! |
I don't think it's hogwash - I like the dynamic of being able to walk from downtown to the arena in minutes. I like the idea of having truly urban amenities surrounding the arena. Firepark is close, but it's not urban (whether they plop a hotel and some restaurants there or not) - and that's an important distinction.
To me, one of the best urban arena/stadium projects is San Diego's Petco Park - it's been a catalyst for all sorts of very urban development and cool stuff around it - it's truly part of the city. That's what a new arena once it's eventually built should be for Calgary.
I still like the North end of Stampede or Railtown as locations best. West Village has potential but it'll take about $300-$400 million in infrastructure and remediation to open that area up to redevelopment - we already have ridiculous amounts of undeveloped and underdeveloped lands in the downtown and beltline to build up before we need to open up more land in West Village.